Well,
here we are on the other side! Another Christmas dusted off and filed
on the memory shelves. One of my presents was an iPod nano!!! Yay! I'm
late coming into the mp3 business. This one is great because I can also
listen to my beloved CBC radio if I want, something I enjoy doing as I
walk. Walking is what I plan on doing more of as Jan 30th looms closer.
Cross training:) I have to take off all those extra chocolate, cheese,
wine, dip, crackers,trifle, gravy pounds I put on over the last week.
Yikes, really, I am not kidding, but they sure were tasty:)
gather round, children
You know for retail in Hong Kong, Xmas is huge and we spent a lot of time and energy planning for its arrival and departure. In the past month, I watched almost daily this Treemap visually identifying category composition, which products move and how they perform. In this particular interpretation which I hided confidential information, you can imagine the grids are product categories, the size of the rectangles are sales, height of them are quantity sold, while colors are margin. Don't you think it is highly effective to spot out anomalies or patterns? The best thing about Treemapping is that I can see individual product performance in relation to the whole picture of the department.
I've been using Treemapping for years and eventually settled on a German made Treemap software by Macrofocus. They have constant updates to enhance features and import excel files almost instantly. It has been a great tool for me for the past few years and I feel thankful for such great software development.
If you don't know what Treemap is, check out my previous post "A Visual Person's Links", Treemapping wikipedia or find out some of the treemap images from Google to get a glimpse or to start with.
We used to sell larger versions of these beautiful paper storage boxes from PLUS, the series is called Living Post which is very good for organizing your home and work desktop. This year they released a smaller version which is also cheaper at about HK$98 per piece. Instantly they became our top sellers in Xmas.
Most people have their stationery stuffed in a drawer without classification and eventually a lot of them are not used on regular basis, they are just lying there to be thrown away one day. The problem is, like most of your other stuffs, that without organization, things are not being used to their potential and this is such a waste.
So instead of putting stuffs in drawers, Living Post offers to have your gears accessible on your desktop. Yes you have to create a space for such storage boxes but the payback is guaranteed. You make things beautiful so that they become useful.
I now use a square orange box to store clips, craft related stuffs such as MT masking tapes, leather tools. The large drawer is just the right size for postcard or 4x6 photos, a calculator, Field Notes and Moleskine pocket size notebook fit perfectly well inside. My other narrow black box is used for photo related stuffs such as shutter release, 35mm film canisters, tapes, etc. It also serve as a place to put miscellaneous or temporary stuffs.
The Living Post drawers are tiny but enough. If you are not a stationery freak, chances are you will find it useful in your own ways. Say for storing daily cosmetic stuffs, for a dedicated place to store all your keys and cables, etc.
I wish they have a version with wood pattern which fits perfectly with my desktop theme at home.
best wishes to all of you as we celebrate the return of light
be happy amongst your loved ones
My brother's house last night. A winter wonderland! We were there for his father in law's 80th birthday party. As beautiful as it was outside, the drive home was very slow and took every ounce of concentration. Snow falling steadily, road covered with fresh snow and in that area they don't salt because of people's wells. It was the kind of falling snow that hypnotizes you as it drive through it, creating constant 3D effect as if you are driving through a vortex. Wierd and wonderful.
Nevertheless, it was still absolutely magical out there.
Hope you have a contented and peaceful few days ahead of you:) Happy Christmas!
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! How did it get here so quickly?
Lots to do still as always. Heading off to the gym shortly.
37 days until we BustaMove. Yikes! Did I mention that my daughter has signed on?
The prize list is growing:) Yay. Wooden Monkey has donated a gift certificate:) Thanks. $10 donation gets you in on a draw for all this! Only 57 tickets sold to date.
